16. Housing

Housing is expensive and there’s not enough of it.

Much of the reason for houses being so expensive is that commercial banks create money out of nothing in the act of lending money for mortgages on houses. So they love to lend (and to be paid money that the mortgage re-payer, and often his wife, has to go out to earn). The more money the banks lend, the more money is created in their own ownership. The person who borrows the most gets the house so the price of houses increases.

If banks were no longer allowed to create money out of nothing house prices would be far lower. This might worry mortgaged house owners in the interim until a steady state is reached.

Such a reform would reduce both the purchase price of houses and the rent on rented accommodation. This would be welcome because then fewer people would be destitute because of inability to afford a mortgage or rent.

Somehow we need more houses. So it must be made easier to obtain land for houses preferably on brown field sites. House building technology has advanced greatly so technical issues are less restricting than they were.

We probably do need more social housing and council owned property. Ways need to be found to encourage people to care for their rented home well.

A way of better helping homeless people back into decent accommodation after crises in life needs to found but a reduction in house prices is a key part. This is always going to difficult because broken human relationships are usually involved but an improvement in family life more widely and an increase in jobs should help.

The more couples and families break up the more homes we need so the less we fall out with each other the more easily we can get by with the fewer dwellings. So let’s do all the above things to be a happier society and get on better and be easier to house!!